The red scar across her neck is a chilling reminder of the horrific knife attack which could have killed teenager Zoe Lonsdale.

Every time she looks in the mirror her mind jolts back to the terrifying night ex-boyfriend Andrew Burn tried to kill her in their bed.

As Burn, 22, awaits sentence for attempted murder, his traumatised victim today told the Gazette how the attack ruined her life. She has been left a shell of the confident young woman she was, unable to trust men, struggling to sleep and finding it hard to

socialise without the support of her family.

"Every time I look in the mirror and see the scar it reminds me of what happened. I feel like a freak because people ask me about it and it upsets me," said 19-year-old Zoe.

"I feel like I'm asleep and I just want to wake up. I don't think it has really hit me yet but I know it has ruined my life."

Her nightmare began on March 9 when Burn, who she had been seeing for nine months, began a hellish attack as she dozed in bed.

Zoe froze with terror as he sliced open her neck with a steak knife in the bedroom of their home in Maynard Street, Carlin How.

She was then subjected to a half-hour ordeal in which she was stabbed and slashed with a craft knife and finally strangled.

But the teenager, soaked in her own blood and barely conscious, told how her great grandmother, who she calls "Little Nana", appeared to her and gave her the strength to fight back.

Zoe then convinced Burn to spare her life by pleading: "Before you kill me, think about your son."

"I wasn't expecting to survive. I was prepared to die," she said.

"I'm not spiritual or anything but as I blacked out I saw my great gran and she gave me a kind of shock and that gave me energy to push Burn off.

"He was knelt over me with his hands by his side. I told him if he was going to kill me he would never see his son again. He got off me, collapsed on the floor crying and said he was sorry."

She called for an ambulance and Zoe was rushed to hospital for emergency treatment. The apparently motiveless attack has baffled Zoe, her family and detectives.

She said: "I have got no idea why he did it. We hardly argued and got on well. The police don't even know. His friends have disowned him and want nothing to do with him. They couldn't believe what he had done."

Zoe's mum Tracey Greenwood, 38, of Liverton Mines, said her daughter had been traumatised by the attack.

"She used to wear make-up and dress nicely but now she doesn't. She doesn't want to attract anyone's attention since this."

And she recalled her horror as she arrived at the James Cook University Hospital to see Zoe covered in blood.

"I was in total shock. I couldn't believe it was happening," she said. "She was covered in blood even after they had cleaned her up. I was devastated - I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Zoe and Burn had met through a family friend some nine months before the attack.

Their relationship was described as "normal" and to friends and family they appeared happy. They had even been entertaining friends on the night of the attack.

"We had had a good night," she recalled. "Then I went to bed and left him to watch TV."

Zoe then remembers waking up with Burn holding a knife to her throat. She said he whispered in her ear "don't say a word" before cutting her throat.